This invention relates to a rescue vehicle for the passenger cars of a continuous cable railway, which can be conveyed to a position above a passenger car on at least one cable, with suspension tackle attached to the cable and with a rescue cabin which is attached tightly on the suspension tackle in a driving position.
According to international standards, cable railways are to be equipped with a rescue vehicle for emergency cases, for example a derailing of the cable from the track, in order to retrieve the passengers from the blocked transport car when country is being crossed that is difficult to traverse over, and from which they cannot be removed from the cable. Thanks to the high degree of operational safety generally achieved by cable railways today, the rescue vehicle equipment is little used since such emergencies do not generally occur. The rescue vehicles, however, must always be prepared and available for use in emergencies according to the regulations, and the testing of the vehicles is prescribed once yearly, during which their readiness for use and functional capability is determined and inspected.
For a rescue vehicle with the features noted above, as disclosed in EP 399 413, the rescue cabin which is fixed on the suspension tackle so that it cannot be removed has a holding capacity which is as large as a cabin of the passenger cars. On the cabin of the rescue vehicle, an additional rescue unit is attached on both sides, the rescue basket of which can be lowered by winch-driven hoisting cables to each passenger car. Each rescue basket offers standing surfaces for two people, has a platform which can be swivelled between a folded up driving position and a folded down position for walking in a rescue operation, and allows itself to be secured for boarding at each passenger car as well as at the rescue vehicle.
With this known rescue vehicle, several rescue operations are necessary to pick up all of the passengers of each passenger car in the rescue vehicle; moreover, the vehicles must be secured to one another twice for each rescue process for transferring passengers, namely the basket of the rescue unit to the passenger car for one and for another on the cabin of the rescue vehicle.
In a variation published in the Internationalen Seilbahnrundschau (International Cable Railway Review) 8/1992, pages 24-25, the known rescue vehicle has a diesel motor-driven hydrostatic driver, has only one rescue unit, and is like a crane with a hand crank over a worm gear pair rotatable by 90.degree. on the suspension tackle in each case. This shortens the distance between the two drive tracks to each passenger car; the rescue basket holding two persons can be lowered with a gas-driven motor to the height of the vehicle.